


Pull Yourself Together, Charles.

by bonestilts (orphan_account)



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Erik Being Cocky, High School, Homophobia, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, M/M, Pining, crude language, raven being raven
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-26 22:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13867797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/bonestilts
Summary: The Five Times Charles Embarrassed Himself in Front of ErikAnd The One Time Erik Embarrasses Charles.(based off prompts)





	1. one: locker mishap

i.

The first time Charles did it, it was a complete and utter accident. Really, he hadn’t meant to. 

It happened in the locker room at Westchester High, which was to be fair, just another prison looking, pricey school in the area. It was the very beginning of the year, Charles had just moved from Nottingham and enrolled as a Junior at Westchester. He knew absolutely no one at the school, except for his half-sister Raven who was in the year below. But she had made it clear to him when school started that she didn’t want him peeping a word to her whilst she tried to make new friends. If only it were as easy for Charles as it was for her. 

He had been given a slip of paper that had his lock code scribbled down earlier that morning, whilst being introduced to his new home room class. Of course, he was nervous. Charles was the perfect target for letting out bottled-up anger; he was shorter than most fifteen-year-olds, had messy hair covering the nape of his neck and wore round, oversized glasses that constantly slid down the bridge of his freckled nose. If anyone was to Google to term ‘nerd’, Charles’ school picture would be the top result. 

Everyone in the class was dismissed to go put their bags and books in their new lockers, Charles waited until he was last to follow them. The lockers weren’t lining the main hallway as Charles had expected, he had seen it in every high school American film ever. Instead on either side of the stairwell were two thin hallways that held all the lockers. The space was practically asking to be humid, claustrophobic and to smell of teenage boy’s sweat and cheap rip-off AXE cologne.

Charles scanned the first few locker numbers and identified which side he should be searching on. He was unsure at first, but after squeezing past many bodies crowding the thin hallway, he finally found his. 

Locker Number 116.

He was bottom. Bottom locker, that was. The boy above him was already unpacking his book bag and was not-so-neatly shoving the folders inside, his actions promised to drop something on Charles’ head at least three times a week. Charles stifled a frustrated sigh and crouched down to the ground, he would be spending the rest of his year on his knees. No–, not in that way. He grabbed the silver lock with one hand and put the slip of paper on the ground in front of him.

Turn the dial clockwise, three times. Stop at first number, 22. Turn anti clockwise once, until pass the first number. Then back clockwise until second number, 28. Turn anti clockwise again until reaching third number, 18. 

Thankfully, the lock clicked open and Charles let himself smile in relief. Now all he had to do was get the hang of it and be able to unlock the lock quickly in order to get out of the damned locker room as fast as he possibly could. Charles opened the wooden door to be met with a molding banana. 

_Wonderful start._

Suddenly, a trouser-clad hip was nudging Charles on the side of the head. It was the boy in the locker above. The space was tight, so people vacating the top lockers had to almost bend over the people below, so that they could both get their books in and out without having to break their spines into a right angle. The bump shifted Charles’ glasses and he turned his head to retort.

He stopped short when he felt his nose brush against the cold zipper of the boy’s trousers. Charles’ face was directly in front of his crotch. The boy hadn’t seemed to notice and leaned forward to, presumably, throw something into the highest compartment of the locker. The movement caused Charles’ face to mash against his groin and he let out a yelp. The boy immediately jumped back and barked something out at Charles that certainly contained a few curses. Charles was too taken back by what the boy looked like to even comprehend what was going on.

He was tall alright. His legs longer than anything Charles had ever seen before and they sported muscular, hairy calves. His stomach was flat and no doubt covered with more muscle, his shoulders were broad and he filled out the white school shirt amazingly. His tie was loosely done up around his thick neck, and had a long face complimented by a sharp jawline. His hair was short, mussed, and dirty blonde coloured. His grey looking eyes bore into Charles’ in a threatening manner. That didn’t matter though, because he was utterly gorgeous – in a terrifying way.

Charles was brought back to reality once he heard the sharp sound of laughter surrounding him, everyone had seen what had happened and were now all pointing at Charles; some doubled over. 

Charles was mortified. His body was radiating immense amounts of heat, one of the boys around Charles could have used his face to warm up his lunch instead of waiting for the microwave in the cafeteria. Charles’ movements were limited to glancing around slowly at the mocking faces and staring down at his hands on the ground. 

“I–I’m so… so, so terribly sorry,” Charles managed to lift his chin to meet the eyes staring down at him, “I didn’t m-mean to–,” he swallowed audibly, “to, uh, touch you t-there.” 

The boy thrusted his finger at Charles, who flinched thinking he would be hit, the boy’s expression was still rough and accusing, “I don’t want your fucking apology, you gay piece of shit. Why the fuck did you stuff your face into my dick?” 

Well, for such an attractive looking young man, he sure wasn’t one of the nicer ones. Through the shame, the embarrassment and sting of a far too familiar insult, Charles recognized a foreignness in the boy’s accent. He wasn’t from England, certainly not America either, his voice was too silky sounding, it was deep, but it had emphasized the letters that American accents didn’t. Charles thought perhaps he was from Russia. 

Ah, yes. The answer to his question. “Oh, no, truly, I-I didn’t mean to do that. You just accidentally bumped me and so I looked up and,“

“Oh, so now you’re gonna blame it on me? What the hell?” The boy spun around and looked at other people with a certain expression that Charles still categorized as mocking, when Charles didn’t say anything to defend himself, the boy continued, “You’re pathetic, dude. Don’t touch me again or I’ll report you to the SC for sexual harassment. You hear?” 

German. He’s German, that explains the little flecks of –

“I said, do you hear me?” 

“Yes, yes, sorry.” With that, the whole ordeal was over, much to Charles’ gratitude, and the boys turned their attention back around to their books. Charles turned on his knees and practically shoved his entire head into his locker to hide himself from the world outside. He even feared that the pages inside of his locker would set fire due to how hot his ears were. 

Shortly after, the students began to slowly disappear from the locker room and presumably made their way to their first class of the year. Charles stayed behind, partly in embarrassment and partly because he needed to re-oxygenate his lungs. 

Only just gaining back his usual pale colour, instead of beet red, Charles excused himself, to himself, from his own locker and emerged into the main hallway in search of a bathroom. There was one a few feet away. Inside, Charles locked himself in a cubicle, shut the lid, and sat down on it with his head in his hands. 

Charles searched his heart and mind for what he was feeling. It was a difficult mix, but familiar. He wasn’t ashamed of what had just happened anymore, that had pitifully turned into disappointment and fear. It related to his last schooling experience, which hadn’t ended too well. 

It was his first day and yet Charles’ mind was already spiraling back around to the origin of how he got to Westchester High. 

His urge to transition schools had started with a small mishap that took place after school one day. Charles really enjoyed rugby and used to play it as a child, but now that he had moved into secondary school, the only rugby players on the school team were the tough, muscular, sporty boys. It was no place for Charles, so he didn’t sign up and was left to sometimes watch during lunch as they practiced. Some of the players were absolute knob heads and Charles found himself mumbling corrections under his breath about their game. 

Unfortunately, Charles had once been held back after a PE lesson and was to help the rugby coach pack up the field after training. Charles was still in his sport uniform from when he had it period six, and needed to visit the changing rooms at the same time as the rugby players. The whole thing was an innocent accident; he may have walked in on a shower cubicle that was already taken, by mistake, and then he may have been so shocked that his clumsy feet slid on the wet floor, and maybe he fell onto his back whilst also kicking his victim right in the balls, then possibly all the boy’s teammates rushed to see what happened and saw Charles’ legs tangled with the boy’s. It was honestly a massive misunderstanding, but boys are boys and bad things happen to good people.

Charles went from being completely invisible, to being the most well-known person on campus for the next few weeks, and not for a good reason. 

The day after the shower incident, Charles was riddled with multiple slurs about being a ‘cocksucker’ and a ‘poofter’ around the halls, all from people who hadn’t even seen what happened. Charles knew that the story would have spread quickly, he also knew that the story that was being spread around was probably exaggerated greatly. 

It was new for him to be insulted as a homosexual, it certainly had never happened before. Charles liked to think he took it pretty well, he just ignored what they said about him behind his back and kept his head held high. But then it started to get a little too much for him to just turn his back on. 

There would sometimes be black sheets of paper taped to his locker with ‘fuck off fag’ scribbled on them with liquid whiteout. It was a waste of whiteout, really. He would be tripped in the lunch hall, thrown apples at, his nickname had become “Cockles”. Which, whenever Charles thought about it, didn’t make too much sense because the boys that called him that also had a cock of their own. Not to mention he actually found the name quite funny, reminded him of a chicken. 

Sometimes Charles would foolishly wonder if there was hope that his best friend, Hank, would ever stand up for him, fight back, but it vanished whenever Charles would remind himself that Hank was just like him – weak, nerdy looking and most importantly; intelligent. He was smart enough to know the consequences of publicly standing up for his friend, Charles didn’t blame him.

Charles left the school four weeks after the torment started, his mother didn’t care to know why he wanted to move so desperately. She didn’t care about most things that had to do with Charles’ life, just as long as he sometimes went out to buy her some booze and wasn’t talking around her. From an early age, his mother didn’t hesitate to yell at Charles to stop talking because of his ‘annoying, whiny voice’. 

Raven had been fully aware of the rumors about her brother, she had once tried to ask him if he wanted to talk about it. Raven was quite popular at their old school, she had plenty of friends, both boys and girls, and was worshipped by all. Charles still couldn’t get over the fact that Raven volunteered to change schools with him. After all, Charles was the one drowning in the sea of endless abuse, Raven had nothing to do with it and was living the dream she had always wanted. For a while now, Charles assumed Raven just wanted a fresh start. 

Charles realized now that he feared that Westchester High would mimic his old school. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t handle the homophobic comments, because he certainly couldn’t, but it was more so about the fact that Charles needed to have friends in order to survive his last few years at school. It wasn’t junior school anymore, parents couldn’t protect their children, nor teachers their students – and by the way Charles’ first day of this school was going, it was almost as if the world was sending Charles a caution sign in big, bold, flashing letters. 

Standing up and unlocked the door, Charles is overwhelmed by the urge to slap himself when he remembers that although he doesn’t want people to harass him for being different – he hadn’t even tried to defend himself against their accusations in the locker room. That was the first stop to not repeating his previous year. It was as if he had already given up hope without beginning to try in the first place.

_Well done, Charles. This is going splendidly._

 


	2. ya'll done fucked up charl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles takes a tumble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im having fun with this fic

ii.

The second time Charles did it, he had been late to Biology, the only subject he actually enjoyed, and needed to get there ASAP if he wanted to pass. 

By this point in time, Charles had been at Westchester High for about two weeks. The time seemed to fly and Charles was still convinced he arrived there just the other day, but alas, he was now painfully comfortable with the buildings surrounding the courtyard and he was able to navigate himself to each class. Charles believed that his chances of leaving the god-forbidden homophobic school had significantly decreased just by him knowing his way around. 

Luckily, every time Charles goes to his locker, the pretty, tall German boy above him doesn’t pay him any attention and there hasn’t been a repeat of the first day. 

The morning of the incident was interesting, it held a late theme that he probably should have been paying attention to. Charles had woken up a tad bit too late due to how comfortable his bed felt. The blankets were never as soft and warm as they were in the morning than when falling asleep, it physically hurt Charles to have to haul himself out of their embrace.

The next step was to hop in the shower and wash his hair, Charles hadn’t washed it in a week and it was starting to get dandruffy. But no, Raven must have had the same idea, for she woke up early and also decided to wash her hair. Everyone knew that Raven literally took hours to finish washing up. 

He banged on the door, “Raven? When do you think you’ll be done? It’s getting late.” There was a short pause before Charles could faintly hear the shower door opening, the water stayed running.

“Oh, come on! I literally just got in. Come back later.”

Charles scoffed to the wood of the door. “Are you kidding me? No, you didn’t. You’ve been in there for almost half an hour now.” Charles sighed, he lent forward to rest his forehead against the door. “Please, Raven. Let me have a quick shower, we’ll just swap places quickly. I really need to go, I’ve got Biology first and you know how much I love–”

He mustn’t have been speaking loud enough, Raven shouted back, “What did you say?” 

Charles took a moment to grit his teeth. Was he really going to have a screaming match through a door that leads to his naked younger sister? 

“Charles? I didn’t hear what you said. Can you say that again?” 

Turns out he was.

“I said,” he raised his voice, “I’m going to be late for school and I’ve got Biology first! And you know how much I love Biol–“

“Huh?”

Louder this time, “Late for school. Biology first!”

“What first?”

“Bio–“

“What?!”

“Raven! For fuck’s sake!” By this point, Charles was slamming his fists against the door, making it rattle and wobble on its hinges. “Just let me–!“

The door to the bathroom swung open. Steam rolled out and lapped at Charles’ bare feet like an oceans tide. He was astonished at what he saw. Raven stood there in front of him, a shit-eating-grin plastered onto her face. What angered Charles the most was that her hair was entirely dry and in fact, she had makeup on her face. Looking behind her to the sink, he saw that although the shower was turned on, she had been busing herself with applying her daily makeup. She hadn’t even been showering.

“I think you have anger management issues, brother, do you want to go see anyone about it?” Raven’s smirk grew wider.

“Shut up.” Charles muttered, obviously irritated by her intentional stalling that would probably now cause him to be late to class. “You could hear me the whole time, couldn’t you?”

“Of course, I could.” 

“Of course, you could.” Charles repeated dully. He moved past Raven and began taking his bed shirt off in hurried movements. Raven stared, unimpressed, at his skinny, pale torso. Flushing, Charles lifted his shoulders to his ears and tried to turn his back to Raven, only for her to lift an eyebrow at his freckled spine that protruded from his skin. Charles turned his head over his shoulder and glared at her, “What are you looking at?”

“Someone who needs to eat a whole lot more.” As if to prove her point, Raven took a step towards him and jabbed him in his visible ribs. Charles jerked back.

“Ouch! What was that for?” He rubbed at the small nail shaped dent on his side.

“That was for you being too skinny. No _girl’s_ going to notice you if you don’t put on some more fat and muscle soon, and they’re certainty not going to notice you if you hide yourself away in massive sweaters.” 

If Raven was inviting Charles to ignore his past involvement with homosexual rumors and bullying, Charles was going to take it. Though he could pick out many errors in that statement, he rebutted with the easiest one, “Lucky Westchester has a set uniform then, hmm?” Charles began pulling down his pants, Raven turned then and went back to dabbing at her face with an egg-shaped sponge. It looked similar to the boiled egg Raven threw at him the night before. 

“You know that’s not what I meant. You’re turning, what? Seventeen?”

“Sixteen.” Charles opened the glass door to the shower.

“Right, you’re turning sixteen. This is the pinnacle of your teen years, you’re going to want to have some golden memories to look back on, and not just of studying and which books you read during summer.” Charles snorted at this. He made sure his back was to Raven as he scrubbed at his thighs and in between. “This is the point in your life where you’re supposed to meet someone fun, someone who makes you super happy, like Hank.” 

Charles’ old school friend, Hank, had been accidentally introduced to his sister one day when Charles invited him back to their house. They were in his room looking through genetics books and discussing their multiple theories on where it was heading, when Raven had practically kicked down his door in a towel. 

There was no doubt Hank had seen some parts of her that the towel was supposed to hide, Charles tried not to think about that. Charles had never thought Raven was into boys like Hank, who was the definition of a nerd, and on some occasions considered Raven having a secret kink, he also tried not to think about that. Stereotypes aside, it only took two weeks before Hank and Raven turned into a sickly adorable couple. Surprisingly, they find way to make time for each other almost every day. 

Raven broke through his thought train, “And of course they don’t need to be the one, you don’t even have to date if you don’t want to. But one thing’s for sure, you need experience, Charles, and I know for a fact that you haven’t got much of that when it comes to relationships.” 

“How would you know if I have experience or not? It’s not like you’re following me around every day at school, you were the one who demanded I don’t even look at you, let alone talk to you.” 

“Charles. I don’t need to watch you at school to know you have never spoken to a girl in your life, apart from Moira.” Raven paused for a moment, then added softly, “And besides, I have my sources.” 

Charles stopped cleaning his hair, “Your what?”

“Never mind that.”

“M’kay,” Charles began scrubbing again, “Well, it doesn’t matter if you, or your sources for that matter, see me talking to girls at school,” the misunderstanding was almost painful to continue, “I could have had someone over once or twice. You wouldn’t know.” 

By this point, the steam had completely fogged up the glass, so both Raven and Charles were comfortable with her facing him for she couldn’t see anything below his shoulders. She put down her eyeliner pencil with a clatter. “Charles, your bedroom walls are paper thin, please don’t forget that I’m only down the hall. There are no secrets in this house.” 

Charles frowned and made a funny face, although Raven was staring at the back of his head. Little did he know, he was being led into a trap, “So? What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Far be it from me, but unless your partner is considerably unimpressed, there has only ever been one voice calling out during the night, and it’s easily identified as yours.” 

“Raven!” Charles wished he hadn’t turned around then to stare at Raven in horror, he was aware that his face must have been extremely flushed and he just hoped she wouldn’t notice it as any more than the heat of the shower. Though she was embarrassing correct, he didn’t really want to know that his own sister could hear him having orgasms alone. “No! Stop listening, don’t listen!” 

Raven waved her hand in dismissal, her laughter bubbled through the small bathroom. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” Charles sighed, “Well, I’m half kidding.”

“Raven!”

“But I can’t hear much, don’t worry. It’s all muffled anyway, I’m just still trying to understand how you have so much energy to do it _every_ night. Every single night, Charles! Can’t you let a girl get her beauty sleep?”

“RAVEN!” 

And that was how Charles ended up running at top speed through the hallway to make it in time for his Biology class. The conversation in the shower had gone on for far too long and both Raven and Charles panicked in the bathroom when they could hear the sound of Charles’ bus alarm through the thin walls of their house. Charles had literally jumped from the shower and violently shoved Raven out of the way to reach his towel in time before she was shown any parts of him he would rather have kept private. In doing so, Raven’s arm jerked from his push and she not only jabbed herself in the eye with her makeup pencil, but also drew a massive line from the corner of her left eye, all the way up to her hairline on the opposite side of her head. This, however funny for Charles, made them increasingly later than anticipated. 

Charles’ school shoes were slapping loudly against the linoleum floor as he raced down the empty area. His school tie was waving wildly past one shoulder and he clutched onto his Biology books with a killer grip. Unbeknownst to Charles, the good-looking German who owns the locker above him was also running to get to a class on time. He turned into the corridor faster than anything Charles had seen, unfortunately it was just another case of Charles being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

He and the German collided with a massive thud. Charles’ and the boy’s books went flying, papers exploded into the air as feathers would if a fat pigeon was hit with a shotgun. Charles’ lips and nose smashed against the German’s hard cheekbone, they were immediately numbed with a dull pain. Both of them toppled over from the sudden force and Charles ended up on top of the German.

“What the fuck?” The boy groaned, rubbing his temple where it had hit against Charles’ pretty roughly. The lilt in his accent sent Charles into de ja vu, and only then did he recognize who he’d just slammed into. The dread didn’t have time to kick in, for Charles clasped his hand over mouth to repress a small cry of pain and writhed around. “Argh, get off me, you’re fucking humping me.” 

Charles realized that he was slotted between the boy’s legs. He immediately stilled and opened his eyes wide to see that the boy was wincing in pain. Charles, unsure what to do, was lying on top of the same student he had molested and was also sure he’d broken his nose. The boy was pushing at Charles.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” He rolled off quickly before he suffered from an involuntary reaction. Charles pulling his tie from underneath the boy’s armpit in the process.

“You better not be one of those fags.” The boy basically breathed it out it was so quiet, despite this, it still held its threatening tone. The same one that Charles first heard in the lockers a few weeks ago. He lifted himself up on his elbows and glared at Charles with his steely, green–grey eyes. 

Charles pretended he hadn’t heard what he said, but in fact the word tightened his chest in such a way that Charles felt like rolling up into a tight ball. 

They pushed themselves up on their knees and silently stared at each other as if one would suggest what to do next. The boy looked like his head was throbbing, he had one palm resting on his hairline and the other on his thigh as if to steady himself. Charles couldn’t feel the inside of his lips; his teeth had rammed into the flesh there at such an angle that it turned it numb. Charles tried to ignore the fact that his ears were burning and hot from knowing that he’d been on top of this abnormally attractive boy, not to mention wriggling around. The boy was frowning at him, Charles thought due to pain, then for a split second they softened and he looked like an entirely different person. 

He lifted his arm up and pointed to Charles’ face, “You’re bleeding.” 

He hadn’t noticed, but there was warm liquid that ran from his nose and tickled his upper lip. It felt as if he was having a runny nose. Charles wiped at it with the back of his hand, as if to prove the boy’s point, there was a vivid streak of blood along his knuckles to his wrist. It didn’t help that he was already pale, it made the blood look more dramatic. 

“Oh.” Charles sputtered dumbly.

It didn’t stop there either, suddenly it began rushing out, rapidly dripping down his chin and onto his white shirt. Charles quickly tried to cage his nose with his hands but it only pooled in his palms and leaked through the cracks in his fingers. He must look like he’d just murdered someone.

The most embarrassing part was that Charles was sure the nosebleed wasn’t caused by the collision itself. 

“Here,” the boy shoved his hand in his trouser pocket and pulled out a wad of plain tissues, “this should help.” He held them up to Charles’ nose. Dumbstruck and muddled, Charles let the German cover his shaking, bloody hands with his own and hold a tissue to his pulsing nose. It was a confusing motion, letting the boy harshly shove a tissue at his face. Charles’ first impression of him was that he didn’t like to be in close contact with other people, so for him to be not only helping Charles, but touching him? It was certainty confusion. After all, he was the homophobic one. 

Charles attempted in thanking him but his throat ran dry, instead he nodded solemnly and finally began holding the tissue himself, letting the boy sit back on his heels. Being late to Biology class had long vanished from Charles’ mind. It didn’t take long before the student began to recognize who he was.

“Hey, it’s you again.” He raised his eyebrows a little, Charles began to panic, “You’re the same kid who touched my dick.”

His bluntness caused Charles to flush, “I didn’t mean to, I swear. It was an accident.” For such a good-looking person, not to mention also downright rude, Charles did not want to be known by him as the ‘boy who touched his dick’. But alas, once again he had embarrassed himself in front of this boy. 

The boy’s response was hesitant, long, and drawn out. “Right.” He didn’t sound convinced but it was impossible for Charles to read what he felt, his face was a blank canvas. “Well anyway, good luck with,” he gestured towards the blood on Charles’ shirt briefly, “your issue, or whatever.”

The boy pivoted around on his knees to pick up the books he’d dropped, there weren’t many. Then he stood up and took one more glance at Charles sitting on the floor. 

“Don’t ever touch me again, kid.” The boy walked swiftly past him down the hallway in the direction of his classroom. Charles didn’t let himself think about what he’d said, he also didn’t let himself think he was upset for missing the opportunity to get the boy’s name.

Charles did, however, let himself sign heavily into his tissue and hang his head in post embarrassment and shame. How he somehow managed to get himself into an awkward situation almost on a daily basis, he will never know. Charles’ heart suddenly stung with a form of homesickness, he wished Hank were here. Hank would have laughed with him, not at him, and would have made him feel confidently clumsy, not stupidly. Charles thought he may even miss that dork’s face, with wonky glasses much like his own, gelled up hair in an attempt to be cool and most importantly, his blue coloured braces. Charles had had the chance to get braces, but the thought of metal inside of his mouth wasn’t appealing enough to convince him. 

Charles lowered the tissue and felt around his nose, it had stopped bleeding. The fragile material was soaked through with the dark liquid, it felt heavy in his hand. Charles got up and walked to the closest bin, leaving his books all over the ground. He disposed of the used tissue and decided to ignore the dried blood that was caked around his nose, on his chin and spotted on his shirt. He slowly made his way back to his books and began packing them up. 

Kneeling down to grab each one of his Biology papers, Charles realized that the only book lasting on the ground wasn’t actually his. It was small notebook with a brown leather covering. Charles’ almost laughed when he came to the conclusion that it was a possibility that the book belonged to the rude boy who loves to make his heart race. What are the chances? 

Charles stops himself from looking through it and instead shoved it under his arm along with all his other books. Pretending that the book doesn’t exist, he hurriedly makes his way to the class he was supposed to attend more than twenty minutes ago. 

Arriving home that day was the most exciting thing that has happened this entire year for Charles. Before leaving the school grounds, Charles popped the notebook deep into his backpack, intending it to resurface later that afternoon whilst he was in the safety of his own house. 

Charles was expecting to go straight to his room and let his mind battle itself on whether to read the property of another individual, but instead he was stopped by Raven in the hallway to his bedroom. 

“How was your day?” Charles stopped himself from scowling at her, she was leaning in his doorway, one arm resting on the frame, one bent so her hand could rest on her hip. 

“Good.”

“Really? You never say it’s good, you usually say they were just fine, or boring.” 

“Alright then, it was fine.” Apparently, it wasn’t enough, Raven lifted an eyebrow at him, mimicking her movements earlier that morning. “Raven,” Charles groaned, letting his head loll back against his shoulders in exhaustion, “What do you want me to say? That my day was fantastic? It was extraordinary? Please just let me get into my room.”

“I heard you got in a row with the one of the rugby hotties.”

Charles bristled at the mention of rugby, brought back memories that haunted him nightly. “What are you talking about? Is this from one of your ridiculous sources again, because if it is, can you tell them–”

“No, no, this has nothing to do with sources. My friend Angel said she saw you run into Lehnsherr, literally. Said it looked painful too.” 

Charles scanned Raven’s face for any signs of humor, she didn’t seem like she was mocking him. If anything, she looked a little concerned for her brother. Then, his frown turned into shock. “Is that his name? Lehnsherr?”

“Yeah, Erik Lehnsherr. Did you really slam into him as hard as she described it to be? Sounded like you guys had a full-on wrestling match, blood and everything.”

Charles couldn’t even hear what she was saying, he was too focused on the German’s name, finally revealed. 

Erik Lehnsherr. _Erik Lehnsherr._

The name was everything Charles could have hoped for and more. Aside from the boy’s obvious homophobia and rudeness, Charles found him utterly gorgeous and had subconsciously spent more than one night dreaming of a specific pair of calves and white shirt fitted shoulders. The name fitted his picture perfectly, the roughness to it matched the look in his eyes, and the way it sounded in Charles’ mind, in his British accent. It was wonderfully foreign and unique. Charles suddenly found himself wanting to know if this Erik Lehnsherr had a middle name, or maybe if Erik was short for something. 

“…rth to Charles. Earth to–” 

“Huh? Sorry, what were you saying?” 

“I was asking if you were alright? Angel said it was pretty hard core.” 

Charles felt like he was in another world, “Oh, I was fine, just got a small blood nose from hitting it too hard.” As was obvious due to the now brown coloured blood that Charles would have to scrub out of his shirt later.

“Oh, shit, really?” Raven began to laugh, “That’s funny. Hey, she also said you fell on each other, did you guys really fall over?” 

Charles felt his cheeks grow hot, “Yeah, but it wasn’t dramatic or anything, it was just a small trip over.” Raven seemed to think otherwise, she suddenly jumped up and pointed at Charles’ face just as _Erik_ had done when he was bleeding. 

“Liar! Oh my God, Charles Francis Xavier, you’re blushing like a bride!” She pulled her hands closer and cupped his cheeks as if to measure the heat in each palm. “You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?” 

Charles tried to shake his head out of her grip, but she was much stronger than him, “Raven, stop, I’m not embarrassed. I just fell over, nothing–“

“You fell over on the hottest guy in our school, The Erik Lehnsherr. Supposedly also the best rugby player, he might be a league player soon, at least my sources say so.”

“You have sources for him too?” Charles exclaimed, widening his eyes at how creepy his sister really was. He reminded himself to tuck away that small piece of information for later; Erik is allegedly a fantastic rugby player.

Raven scoffed at this as if it was obvious, “Of course, I do, you knob head. Everyone keeps tags on what Lehnsherr does, especially how his season is going. You need to keep up on the times, Charles.”

Charles was finally released, by this point his blush had gone down, but it was still evident at the back of his neck. Charles excused himself from his sister and slipped past her to enter the isolation of his room. She didn’t say anything else as Charles walked away, but she did shoot him a certain look. It was knowing glance, and it made Charles feel his privacy being violated by her eyes. Still unsure if she was aware of the truth behind his sexuality, he decided to keep up with the façade of being ominous. 

Closing the door behind him, Charles put down his backpack beside his feet and sat down at his desk. He dug through the main section of his bag and pulled out the small leather clad notebook that he’d scored earlier. Knowing it was entirely wrong to pry on another person’s property, Charles lay it flat on the wooden desk. 

Then he slowly opened the cover to reveal a front page with a title in grey lead directly in the center. 

_Erik Lehnsherr 11X, apt. 214 782_

Charles had been correct, it was the German boy’s notebook. Filled with energy and entirely livid, Charles continued to flip through the pages. Most of them held little sketches of objects that worried Charles, like guns and crowbars. Some had lists scribbled down, one was surprisingly a recipe for slutty brownies, Charles was convinced he’d written it down for the sake of the name. Charles was beginning to get bored, when suddenly his eye caught on something colorful in the corner of one of the pages. 

It was a love heart coloured in with different coloured pencils, the coloured blended smoothly to form a rainbow. Inside of the heart was the words ‘gay’ and ‘pride’. As much as it shocked Charles, it also saddened him. There was thick black streak that ran diagonally over the colorful heart, crossing it out. It practically screamed “denial” out to Charles, it was almost as if he could relate on a personal level to the small doodle. 

Maybe this Erik Lehnsherr wasn’t the type of person he made himself out to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more? im really appreciating the support and comments guys! it means so much and literally MAKES MY DAY. IT MAKES ME UNBELIEVWBLAMYL HAPPY MOJAY

**Author's Note:**

> do i continue? i have wonderful prompts that can easily be modified into these cherik scenarios and these are so fun to write. ive written two chapters so far.


End file.
